“The Ghost Hunter” is a fascinating article, well-presented in long form by Leah Sottile in the Atavist Magazine. It tells the story of how a secret poet by the name of Cameron La Follette fell under the historical spell of the Santo Cristo de Burgos, a ship wrecked on the Oregon coast a little over three hundred years ago. Even today, beachcombers still find blobs of beeswax flotsam along the coastline near the Neahkahnie peak, though the wreck site itself has yet to be precisely located.
As you might expect, it was a cipher / mysterious writing angle to the story that initially caught my attention. Specifically, a stone carved with strange letters and symbols that some had interpreted as obfuscated directions to treasure that had been retrieved from the wreck and then reburied.
But even though I harbour no desire to jump on a plane to Oregon to covertly hire a night-time mini-digger (Beale Papers-style), I thoroughly enjoyed Sottile’s account. And I think you will too. Check it out! 🙂
IF – this is some sort of memorial – IF .. then it reads in part: “from stern to stem, ‘sleeping with the fishes’.”
The cross to one side signifies south; that to the other, north. I’m tempted to identify the ‘W’ with Andromeda but that would be mere fancy; there’s no way to be sure it’s what the maker had in mind. By contrast, the ‘south and north’ crosses were conventions, and as for ‘sleeping with the fishes’… well, we ALL know that one.
A native named Pete from Mauritius has a fetish for diving with fishes; “they sucks and they blows and the pace never slows, sure beats bedding the bloody old missus”.